Opinion: Google’s new Photos may just have won my library away from Apple | 9to5Mac
My relationship with Apple’s hardware is simple: I’m happily locked in, and not changing platforms any time soon. But my relationship with Apple’s software is complex: I want to love it, but every time Apple decides to “throw everything away” and “start over” with an app, it’s disruptive — and for many users, unnecessary.

When you treat software like furniture or jewelry. Imagine getting up in the morning to go to work and having to learn how to drive a car all over again. I've got other things to do. It's not just Apple. Google just messed up their contacts webapp. It was my favorite and now I can't stand it. Unfortunately, because it's tightly integrated with gmail and hangouts and voice, I'm more or less forced to use it.

Once again, it's like the web programmers are in charge of everything. Which is why dropbox doesn't work from a CoreDuo MacBook running 10.6.8 and Chrome.

I think Steve Jobs famously said he hoped the internet would never lose it's "dial tone" HTML functionality. If you ask me, the dial tone is gone silent.

Labels: blind leading the blind

Security Bug in Safari Browsers Puts OS X and iOS Users at Risk | The Mac Security Blog
Security researchers have discovered a serious Safari address-spoofing bug that can deceive users about the sites they're visiting. The exploit works on fully patched versions of OS X and iOS, and could be used by cyber-criminals in phishing or malware attacks.

Once again, Safari providing the holes while the reams of third party developers trying to shoehorn their code into increasingly restrictive runtime requirements. I like the security features of OSX, I just think that the attack vectors are not small 3rd party apps in the Mac App Store.

Labels: security flaw

Bug in iOS Unicode handling crashes iPhones with a simple text
A peculiar iOS bug apparently that allows pranksters to crash a victim's iPhone by sending a text message from their own iPhone containing what appears to be a single line of seemingly innocuous Arabic script.

A little troubling to be sure.

Labels: secure coding mac, security flaw

Security features in Mac OS X Yosemite | Kaspersky Lab Official Blog
It doesn’t, however, mean that it is an “absolutely” protected operating system – unfortunately, there are no such systems. Moreover, the number of threats targeting OS X, specifically, is growing as is the number of Mac users. This certainly has drawn the attention of criminals, who are looking into vulnerabilities and occasionally finding them.

Some attention directed here. Not nearly as much as directed elsewhere, thank goodness.

Labels: mac, mac security, malware

Chrome for Android goes almost “entirely open source” | 9to5Google
Launched in September 2008, Google’s Chrome browser is now dominant in its share of the desktop web browser market, with approximately 1 in 4 Internet users interfacing with the web using the browser.

This is now the only secure, modern browser that runs under Snow Leopard. Which indicates security policy. I wish they would port Chrome to XP SP2. I'm sure that's still 500 million desktops, if there were 2 billion to begin with.

Labels: chrome

Apple attends 'spy summit' to discuss data privacy, mass surveillance issues
According to The Intercept, which obtained a copy of the event program, the summit was chaired by former British MI6 Sir John Scarlett as part of an ongoing series of conferences put on by the Ditchley Foundation. Said to discuss "complex issues of international concern," these highly confidential meetings are held at the foundation's mansion in Oxfordshire.

As long as they've got someone with the title "Sir" leading the discussion, I'm sure everything will be grand.

Labels: security policy

Cult of Android - NSA hijacked Google Play to install spyware
The National Security Agency and several of its allies around the world have hijacked connections to multiple Android app stores to plant spyware on hundreds of millions of devices.

Hmmmm....

Labels: security policy

Intelligence officers given immunity from hacking laws, tribunal told | UK news | The Guardian: "GCHQ staff, intelligence officers and police have been given immunity from prosecution for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under legislative changes that were never fully debated by parliament, a tribunal has been told."

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Er, um, what was the middle part again?

Labels: security law, security policy

White House appoints NSA-criticizing computer scientist Ed Felten to key post | VentureBeat | Security | by Dylan Tweney: "White House’s appointment today of Ed Felten, a Princeton computer science professor, as its deputy U.S. chief technology officer."

This looks good.

Labels: security, security law, security policy

Install Xcode 3.2.6 on Lion & Mountain Lion - CocoaBob: "Install Xcode 3.2.6 on Lion & Mountain Lion 2013-04-12 Although I figured out how it works by myself, I still wanted to find some simpler procedures. Finally, I found these 2 tutorials from Eugene’s blog, which are so perfect that I’d like to share them."

Generally researching this and thought this was an informative post.

Xcode 3 on Mountain Lion: "The Definitive Guide to Installing Xcode 3 on Mountain Lion (Without Kernel Panics)"

(Via .)

Another great one!

Labels: mountain lion, xcode, xcode 3

Unity chief John Riccitiello | by Gavin Greene: "‘Go to anyone of these conferences, and someone will pull you aside and show you something on their phone, and it’s almost invariably a Clash of Clans clone,’ Riccitiello said. ‘There are examples of games at the very top of the charts where they literally took someone else’s idea and polished it and improved on it in a small way. But that level of execution is to be admired anywhere, in the execution there is art. But ultimately it is … demoralizing to see the level of copying and ‘me-too-ism’ that is typical of game development, it’s sort of the easiest route, and I understand why people do it.’"

The most articulate description of the problem of the independent developer that I have yet read.

Labels: indie

Apple iPad software issue grounds 'several dozen' American Airlines flights [u]: "At least one American Airlines flight was grounded before takeoff on Tuesday due to a software bug that disabled pilots' iPad-powered electronic flight bags, potentially affecting the carrier's entire fleet of 737 aircraft."

OTA upgrades are not the future of enterprise and mission-critical computing.